We’ve had some friends visiting with us the past few days. Their daughter is six years old, and a very close friend of our two boys. The three of them played themselves to exhaustion each and every day, and by the end of the visit they had moved beyond silly to a surreal place that I […]
Read MoreOne of the ongoing challenges of my life is getting my kids to talk about their day. I ask all sorts of questions, try all sorts of different approaches. My most successful approach is to ask if they did anything fun at the playground during recess. They’re always excited to talk about the playground. The […]
Read MoreA couple weeks ago, my oldest son’s elementary school had a “say no to drugs” week where everybody wore red and they had activities that were intended to raise awareness of drugs (presumably in a negative way). One of the activities involved a fire truck. Everybody filed out of their classrooms and into a big field. The fire […]
Read MoreSomewhere in the past few years, my oldest son stopped dancing. I’m not exactly sure when or why, but I noticed it a few weeks back as we were watching the end of Madagascar. Madagascar, in case you haven’t seen it, ends with the song “I Like to move it, move it!” It’s a get-off-the-couch-and-dance sort […]
Read MoreI’ve been coughing a lot the last two weeks, fighting off some nasty bronchial infection. The kids, of course, have been aware of me being sick, but it hasn’t slowed them down very much. This morning, however, my oldest decided he really didn’t want to exercise (as we do every morning). As we were finishing […]
Read MoreOne of my responsibilities each morning is to exercise the kids. As soon as breakfast is done, we head outside to shoot baskets, run races, kick a soccer ball, or whatever other bit of physical play I can dream up. Except for this morning. This morning, the termperature outside was 41 degrees. That’s too cold […]
Read MoreWe’ve been having problems with the eye-rolling lately. I’m not sure where our oldest picked up the habit, but it’s been driving us crazy. There’s something about passive aggressive disrespect (eye-rolling, sighing, and all that nonsense) that is absolutely infuriating. If the kid is going to be disrespectful, I’d rather have him step up and be […]
Read MoreAt our church, the kids go to Sunday school during the services. I’m not a big fan of this (I’d rather go to church with my kids), but after a season of rebellion I gave in to the peer pressure. My wife took a more proactive approach. She now teaches at their Sunday school. Even better, […]
Read MoreAs we were sitting down at a restaurant the other day, the server said. “Thank you, your server’s name is Sarah. She’ll be here in just a moment.” For some reason, the idea of knowing the server’s name before she showed up struck me as funny. I leaned across the table to the boys. “Hey, […]
Read MoreToday’s Tale is in the Chronicle.Click here to read it! Terms for searchers: Hulk, writer’s group, car, minivan
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